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Mission Critical: US$110 rare earths floor now a subsidy
Beijing's suspended export controls switch back on in November, weeks before Washington bans Chinese magnets from its weapons. With NdPr back near US$100/kg, the West's $110 floor is propping up producers at the taxpayer's expense. Rare-earth bulls spent April watching the one number that matters slide the wrong way. Praseodymium-neodymium (NdPr) oxide, the blended feedstock behind the magnets in electric-vehicle motors and wind turbines, fell from about $126/kg in early April to near $100/kg a month on, and by late May had steadied around $102-105/kg. That looked, on the surface, like the panic draining out of the market, with buyers no longer chasing material nobody could actually ship through 2025. Yet what the price chart leaves out is the calendar. Beijing agreed in late 2025 to suspend its harshest rare-earth controls for a single year, a pause now ticking down toward roughly 10 November 2026. Washington, on a separate track, has told defence contractors that Chinese-origin magnets are barred from qualifying weapons systems from 1 January next year. Those two dates land within weeks of each other, so China's leverage is scheduled to switch back on almost exactly as the Pentagon's deadline bites. Under
Mining
Silver's 140% rally is now killing its own demand
Silver's historic 2025 surge is now working against the metal, with analysts at three major banks warning that elevated prices are eroding demand across key industrial end-markets and leaving the metal exposed to further selling. Spot silver fell 3.7% to around US$72.13 per ounce (oz) on Thursday, extending a retreat that has seen prices shed roughly 40% from the January record high of $121.60/oz. A 140% rally across 2025 has been deterring buyers across multiple industries, with UBS warning in a note published on 22 May that elevated price levels are beginning to structurally weigh on consumption. "The demand erosion is likely to persist as long as prices remain at current levels," UBS analysts wrote. UBS strategists Wayne Gordon and Dominic Schnider estimate that weaker demand from photovoltaics, silverware, and jewellery will collectively reduce consumption by around 50 million ounces this year. The bank cut its full-year investment demand estimate from above 400 million oz to 300 million oz - which it described as "still generous given year-to-date outflows" - and slashed its year-end price target to $80/oz from $85 previously. The industrial demand erosion is the critical distinction between silver and gold
Mining
Mission Critical: Japan hit as China curbs rare earths
Since December 2025, China has been running what amounts to a quiet rare earth blockade against Japan - not through formal diplomatic announcements, but through the systematic withdrawal of the materials that underpin everything from electric vehicle motors to missile guidance systems. Exports of dysprosium, terbium, yttrium oxide and gallium to Japan have all but stopped, confirmed by Reuters this week - five months of near-zero shipments, with Chinese customs data recording only trace yttrium volumes crossing the border in that time. The trigger is well-documented: Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi publicly signalled that Tokyo could respond militarily if China moved on Taiwan, and Beijing activated the export controls it has spent years quietly building into enforceable law. Japan imports roughly 70% of its rare earths from China according to the Yomiuri Shimbun - improved from near-total dependence in 2010 after years of costly diversification investment, though still far short of any position that can absorb a sustained cutoff of its highest-value inputs without industrial consequence.Not 2010 - something more deliberateSo how does 2026 differ from the last time Beijing ran this play? The short answer is that it is mo
Mining
Mission Critical: The reagent wars have begun
For three years, Beijing progressively tightened access to the minerals Western supply chains depend on. In May 2026, it moved to the industrial chemicals needed to process them - a shift that sits within a broadening export control architecture now spanning the full breadth of the critical minerals value chain. While the world spent the last three years tracking China's restrictions on gallium, germanium, graphite, antimony, and rare earths, a separate category of exposure was building quietly in the background. Industrial chemicals - the reagents underpinning the extraction of those same materials - attracted comparatively little scrutiny from policymakers or financial analysts during that period, and the gap has now translated into measurable production costs for miners and processors supplying the energy transition. On 1 May this year, China formally suspended exports of industrial sulphuric acid, the chemical workhorse underpinning heap-leach copper extraction, HPAL nickel refining, uranium leaching, and the global phosphate fertiliser chain. Rather than a formal government announcement, the restriction was communicated through producer notifications and trade channel communications to international buyers, coveri
Mining
Mission Critical: Will a Trump card win China's rare earths?
The first American President visit to China since 2017 has an uncomfortable subtext. Washington is now negotiating for access to minerals it has spent a year and billions of dollars trying not to need. Azzet’s Mission Critical is a weekly column that lays out the ebbs and flows around critical minerals supply chains - from pricing, production, refinement and mergers & acquisitions, to manufacturing and consumer products. President Trump landed in Beijing yesterday for a meeting that, whatever the communiqué language says on Friday, is fundamentally a negotiation over materials China controls and the rest of the world does not. Rare earths - the 17 metallic elements underpinning F-35 fighter jets, EV motors, and the magnets inside every offshore wind turbine - are confirmed on the summit agenda alongside Taiwan, Iran's disruption to global oil supply, and the chip access dispute that has run hot since Washington tightened technology transfer rules against Huawei in late 2025. Beijing set the tone before Air Force One touched down, publishing a new rare earth enforcement framework two weeks before the summit that introduces administrative penalties - including licence revocation - for Chinese producers who breach product

Mining
Mission Critical: A US$5bn gamble on two geopolitical bets
Canberra and Washington have pledged more than US$5 billion to critical minerals projects in Australia this week, ahead of the 20 April six-month milestone under their October framework. Named priority recipients include Tronox, Ardea Resources, Arafura and Alcoa-Sojitz, backed by Export Finance Australia and the U.S. Export-Import Bank. Catch is, the framework's forward economics depend on two geopolitical deadlines, and neither is locked in. Beijing has to keep its rare earth export controls suspended past November, while Trump needs a price floor deal signed before the 13 July cutoff.Where the capital is headingMinister for Resources Madeleine King and US Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum confirmed priority projects under the bilateral framework on 13 April. The biggest single cheque landed with Tronox (NYSE: TROX), which picked up coordinated letters of support worth around US$849 million for a new Western Australian rare earths refinery. Close behind, Ardea Resources (ASX: ARL) drew roughly A$1 billion of combined backing for its Kalgoorlie nickel-cobalt project - the largest nickel-cobalt resource in Australia. Arafura Rare Earths (ASX: ARU) held onto its marquee position, with the Nolans project remai
Mining
Lynas Q3 revenue increases 115%, flags strong demand
Australia’s Lynas Rare Earths (ASX: LYC) reported a more than two-fold rise in third-quarter revenue on Tuesday, driven by stronger prices and robust demand as customers look to reduce reliance on Chinese supply. The company posted gross sales revenue of A$265 million for the quarter ended 31 March, up 115% from $123 million in the prior corresponding period (pcp). The result marks Lynas’ strongest quarterly revenue since the final quarter of fiscal 2022, driven by improved pricing and a more favourable product mix. As the largest producer of rare earths outside China, Lynas said market conditions remain supportive, highlighting growing customer demand for diversified supply chains amid ongoing geopolitical tensions. The company noted a “renewed and urgent focus by customers on securing sustainable, outside China supply chains due to ongoing disruptions to previous supply chains”. The rare earths sector has gained renewed attention over the past year, particularly following strategic moves by the United States to secure the supply of critical materials used in advanced technologies. Neodymium-praseodymium (NdPr), a key component in high-performance magnets, remains central to this demand, with applications spanni
Mining
USA Rare Earth’s $2.8bn magnet chain bet
USA Rare Earth has agreed to acquire Brazilian miner Serra Verde in a transaction valued at US$2.8 billion, including ~$300 million in cash and $126.9 million in newly issued stock, and is backed by the United States Government. Serra Verde owns the Pela Ema mine and processing plant in Goiás, Brazil - the only producer outside Asia capable of supplying all four magnetic rare earths at scale, including the heavy elements dysprosium, terbium and yttrium. The operation entered commercial production in early 2024 and is targeting output of 6,500 tonnes of rare earth oxides per year by the end of 2027, across a 25-year mine life. That output is expected to represent more than half of all non-China heavy rare earth supply globally by 2027. The privately-owned miner also secured a $565 million financing package from the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation to fund optimisation and expansion through to positive cash flow. The mine carries a 15-year offtake agreement with a special-purpose vehicle capitalised by U.S. government agencies and private capital sources, covering 100% of Phase I production, with guaranteed floor prices for dysprosium and terbium. Serra Verde CEO Thras Moraitis said the floor pric
Mining
Almost everyone’s a winner in mining rights court case
Australian’s wealthiest person, Gina Rinehart, has claimed victory in a long-running court case over the rights to hundreds of millions of dollars of iron ore in Western Australia that ensnared mining giant Rio Tinto and other parties. Rinehart, through her privately-owned Hancock Prospecting Pty Ltd (HPPL), said the Western Australian Supreme Court decision decisively confirmed its rightful ownership of the Hope Downs and East Angelas tenements in the minerals-rich Pilbara region. But in her judgement Justice Jennifer Smith found Hancock’s legal adversary, Wright Prospecting Pty Ltd (WPLL), had the right to 50% of past and future royalties from Hope Downs. Wright Prospecting welcomed the decision, saying it launched the action to recover its share of royalties from the Hope Downs 1-3 mines. “That claim has been upheld. WPPL also sought either a proprietary interest or a royalty in the Hope Downs 4-6 mines and has been successful in its royalty claim,” it said in a statement published by media outlets. Equally welcoming of the decision was Hancock Prospecting, with Executive Director Jay Newby saying the court firmly rejected “the baseless ownership claims” of WPPL and Rinehart’s children, John Hancock and Bianca Ri